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Heaven's Gate cult leader Marshall Applewhite

If you think I’m about to compare many radio operators – especially those on the commercial side – to a UFO cult, well, you’d basically be right.

From a behavioral standpoint, there are increasing similarities. And it’s those related behavioral quirks – Cognitive Dissonance, True Believer Syndrome, and Cognitive Inertia – that combine to take the #1 spot on our Top 22 Players in AAA and Adult Rock for 2011.

Cognitive dissonance is defined as a discomfort held by having two conflicting cognitions — ideas, beliefs, values, etc. The theory holds that when people experience cognitive dissonance, they will try to reduce the discomfort by altering one of the cognitions — often using some level of rationalization to do so.

For example, in Aesop’s fable The Fox and the Grapes, the fox wants to eat the grapes — but they’re hanging too high and he fails to reach them. To resolve the discomfort, he tells himself that the grapes probably weren’t worth it anyway — they were probably sour. Hence “sour grapes.”

A related concept is True Believer Syndrome.

An example of this type of behavior is the Heaven’s Gate UFO cult.

In 1997, 39 members of this San Diego based cult committed suicide, all wearing brand new purple Nike high-tops, as they believed that there was a UFO trailing comet Hale-Bopp that was going to pick them up, then wipe the Earth clean.

When the world didn’t end, the two surviving members of the cult had an explanation: Wrong Comet.

Trailing comet Hale-Bopp was Arbitron's Personal People Meter, which promised great things for radio.

Starting to sound like anyone you know?

For radio owners, managers, program directors and the consultants and researchers who enable them, the rubber hits the road with Cognitive Inertia.

The idea holds that once a set of beliefs are formed, there is a strong tendency to rely on those familiar assumptions and a refusal or inability to revise or adjust the assumptions as new information becomes available. Ultimately, cognitive inertia becomes a psychological barrier that prevents organizational change.

This is where the Heaven’s Gate UFO cult and radio’s “cult of the Personal People Meter” show their similarities.

Commercial Radio has so bought into Arbitron’s Personal People Meter, it is collectively unable to think beyond it — even as new information becomes available that shows its shortcomings.

Instead, radio operators have convinced themselves that PPM is the Answer, changing formats, firing more staffers, killing off local programming, tightening playlists, and more — all with the aim of transforming radio into a “reach medium” that values commodity-level mass audiences above all else.

While social media rages forward, showing that relationships and communities are of upmost importance, Commercial Radio guys, and they are almost all guys, make more sacrifices to the People Meter god.

Heck, some true believers even use statistically-unsupportable PPM data as music research, showing how far they’ll go in drinking the Kool-aid.

But it’s not just the radio owners and programmers. Consultants and trade mags such as Inside Radio have become cheerleaders and apologists for a series of strategies that have flat-out failed. They’re basically willing to say anything to get paid in a shrinking economy.

Public Radio sometimes suffers from cognitive inertia, failing to update its sound as the market changes or failing to accept audience feedback. But there is one major difference between Public and Commercial Radio: Public Radio is a growth story.

In 2011, Commercial Radio stumbled along – using a tired, failed playbook that earned the industry revenue increases in the low single digits — likely lower than the rate of inflation.

Meanwhile, in the same lousy economy, broadcast television is up 12%-15%, cable television set an all-time revenue high, and new media continues to eat more of the advertising pie.

You’d think that an inability to grow the business would be enough to get radio operators to change course.

You’d be wrong.

Instead, they’re lacing up their Nikes.

-Paul Marszalek

Related Articles:

Memo To Commercial Broadcasters: It’s Not Working

Death of WYSP Proves Our Point: Commercial Radio is Getting it Wrong

New STRATA Survey Shows Potential Triple Whammy for Radio

Mike Henry to Radio: Walk From Arbitron

Last month, in a couple of different posts, we made the case that radio is getting it wrong. The strategy is not working. And now a new STRATA survey of more than 900 agencies supports our thesis.

We argued that old school radio guys (they are almost ALL guys) and the consultants who enable them have swallowed lousy research (PPM) whole, and created game plans that turned radio stations into little more than lowest common denominator jukeboxes.

To recap, we wrote:

Television, with sagging shares and the same lousy economy, managed nearly a 15% year-over-year increase at the advertising sales upfront. Digital media has romanced the auto industry, among many others, and continues to eat more of the pie. Even Public Radio shows growth.

But not commercial radio. Defensive, fear-based programming tactics rack up passive cume, but continue to strip radio of any meaningful sales story and the advertisers are hip to it. The result of all this “work” is anemic, 1% year-over-year “growth”.

With radio’s cash register failing to ring, advertisers are either not sharing commercial radio’s enthusiasm for big, passive cume, or those  advertisers can easily reach those same people through other mediums (television for wide reach, digital for targeted reach).

The STRATA survey data delivers a potential triple-whammy for radio.

Among the unfortunate bullet points:
* The number of agencies reporting radio-focused clients is down.
* The number of agencies who plan to spend less on radio is at a two-year high.
* The two categories agencies most expect to cut spending are auto and entertainment — both are big for radio.

37% of agencies said they’re less focused on radio than a year ago. And no, don’t read that to suggest that 63% are more focused on radio.

In response to the same question, 85% said they were more focused on digital than a year ago, local cable was up 31%, and network TV was up 12% year over year (but up 86% since Q3 2010).

Overall, agencies report that they’re most focused on local television and digital.

The one-two punch of television and digital has crushed print, and radio is flat — for now.

We’ll make the suggestion again — time to re-think. Time to clean house. Time to get back to research, development, and talent acquisition.

Remember, agencies can actually hear your radio station. These pros know the difference between a passive, jukebox-cume-machine, and a station that’s actually exciting, active, and engaged with the audience.

Read also the previous post: Memo to Commercial Radio: It’s Not Working

The Top 22 Tastemaker Songs for the Week Ending 9-18-11

Panel includes the following hand-picked stations monitored by Mediaguide:

Commercial Alternative: KBZT, KNRK, WEQX, WWCD
College Alternative/Eclectic: KEXP, KCRW, KDHX, WDET, WSGE
Commercial AAA: KBCO, KFOG, KGSR, KINK, KMTT, KPIG, WMMM, WRLT, WRNR, WTTS, WWMM, WXRT
Non-commercial AAA: KCMP, KUT, WERS, WFPK, WFUV, WNKU, WTMD, WXPN, WYEP, WYMS

Download The Top 100 here.

The Top 22 Public Radio Albums for the Week Ending 8-21-11

Download The Top 100 here.

With Beady Eye being made up of Liam Gallagher, Andy Bell, and Gem Archer, one would expect the album Different Gear, Still Speeding to sound and feel like the John Lennon Band or even Oasis.

And at times, it does, which is fine by us.

But at other times, Beady Eye surprises with sonic, soaring rock anthems, to a wall-of-sound, Jerry Lee Lewis-style houserocker called Bring the Light.

The album, which streets today, is led by a glam-rocking single called The Roller –first out to radio.

We’ll let the following clips tell the tale — from a very strong BBC Radio One performance, to the video for the current single…

The Top 22 Tastemaker Songs for the Week Ending 1-2-11

Panel includes the following hand-picked stations monitored by Mediaguide:

Commercial Alternative: KBZT, KNRK, WEQX, WWCD
College Alternative/Eclectic: KEXP, KCRW, KDHX, WDET, WSGE
Commercial AAA: KBCO, KFOG, KGSR, KINK, KMTT, KPIG, WMMM, WRLT, WRNR, WRXP, WTTS, WWMM, WXRT
Non-commercial AAA: KCMP, KUT, WERS, WFPK, WFUV, WNKU, WTMD, WXPN, WYEP, WYMS

Download The Top 100 here.

In the film Downfall, problem child Adolph Hitler is informed that the Soviets are knocking on the door.

The 2004 Academy Award-winning film Downfall tracks the final week of Hitler’s Third Reich. It’s an amazing film that portrays Hitler as human, while also attempting to make the point that he had plenty of help unleashing his terror.

What the filmmakers never saw coming was a wave of internet pranksters who would parody the climactic scene in which Hitler loses it as his inner circle delivers the bad news.

There are literally thousands of Downfall parodies floating on the web, with Hitler being told about everything from iPad shortcomings to an untimely Brett Favre interception.

Now comes a very clever version featuring The Tribune, Randy Michaels, and Lee Abrams.

(The reference to Paladino is to the New York Republican candidate for governor Carl Paladino, who allegedly had a bad habit of sending out emails featuring, among other things, bestiality to employees.)

The last line is pure genius…

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UPDATE:

The Chicago Tribune reports that Michaels has resigned, citing that the story has become a major distraction. But even the Tribune piles on with more unflattering allegations. See the story here.

In the meantime, Lee Abrams attempts to set the record straight in The Huffington Post

Original Post:

Two weeks after a New York Times article criticized Michaels for a locker room atmosphere at Tribune, and one week after Lee Abrams subsequent screw up, Randy Michaels appears to be done at Tribune.

The New York Times is reporting that Tribune board, having lost confidence in Michaels, will ask for his resignation as CEO as early as today.

Simply, the fast and loose “creative” culture that Michaels employs may have flown in the early days of mom & pop radio consolidation, but it doesn’t fly at companies of a certain size. Especially when that company is struggling.

The Tribune Company, while probably in need of a shakeup, would never be the next Power Pig, the Tampa station that helped build Michaels’ brand.

It’s one thing to be a change agent. It’s another to be a bull in a china shop.

To use a perhaps bad sports analogy, NASCAR requires governors on the accelerators of the cars to prevent them from going to fast. It’s a safety feature. Randy needs to find his inner governor, or this is the last large company he’ll have worked for.

More likely, Michaels will build his own company, where he’ll have more freedom to do it his way.

Our previous post on Michaels is here, and our post on Lee Abrams is here.

Photo Credit: The Chicago Tribune

Not two weeks after The New York Times wrote a scathing piece on The Tribune Company, which focused on a loose and inappropriate corporate culture encouraged by Randy Michaels (previous post here), victim #1 is long-time radio vet Lee Abrams.

Brought in as “Chief Innovation Officer” to shake up a stuffy company, Abrams became a lightning rod almost immediately thanks to his habit of sending out long, stream-of-conscious, typo-filled “memos” to, well, a bunch of people who write for a living.

Next up was Abrams habit of putting himself and a bunch of other radio people, such as Bob and Tom, on TV.

His personal debut was a special featuring himself with Steve Dahl called The History of the Future.

And then there was Sky Dives, a weekly short-form piece in which Lee, a pilot, would fly from Chicago’s Midway Airport to some small Midwest town and eat at a diner. Yep, that was the show (which, by the way, has been scrubbed from the WGN website).

While the program may or may not have been relevant to the audience, one thing is for certain — it sure was a great way to turn an expensive hobby into a tax write-off. Thanks Uncle Sam!

Yet none of that earned Lee walking papers. What did was Lee’s inability to see the future.

One week after the NYTimes article, Lee sent out a bunch of links, including one from the Onion News Network about a bus full of sluts from a VH1 reality show had overturned on a California highway, spilling slut everywhere.

While arguably quite funny, the nudity, language, tone, and general NSFW (Not Safe For Work) tags should have been a clue that maybe one should not blast the clip in a company-wide email. Oh, and then there was the timing.

Lee was initially suspended, and resigned Friday.

Here’s an episode of Sky Dives, featuring the former home of the NON-COMMvention — The Brown Hotel in Louisville:

And here’s the offending clip from ONN — remember, NSFW:

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Range Rover, in our opinion, owes Paul Simon some coin.

Not long ago, selling one’s music for use in commercials was strictly verboten. At least if you wanted to have any street cred.

The days of Neil Young’s This Note’s for You slowly but surely gave way to not only acceptance, but now an encouraged way to get noticed. With radio more conservative, television spots became not only a viable way to break through, but there was the literal payday as well.

Advertisers bypassing that royalty check by using sound-a-likes is not new, but lately there has been a spate of spots raising eyebrows.

Two weeks back, Sigur Rós let it be known that they were concerned that no fewer than 10 of their songs were being aped in commercials.

Pitchfork followed with a report of two blatant rip-offs. One, for Troy University, has been pulled with apologies to Grizzly Bear for the use of music that had uncanny similarities to the song Two Weeks.

They also noted this shocking ripoff off Fleet Foxes by Kipsta athletic:

The Original:

Among the dead-ringers for Sigur Rós include Busch Gardens, who rip off the song Hoppípolla.

Here’s a fan-made slideshow of the original — oddly, Busch might owe the fan for the concept, as the fan clip pre-dates the Busch commercial…

It gets worse. Check the Telmex commercial with yet another Sigur song:

The original, called Fljótavík:

And then there’s the Range Rover spot that everyone thinks is ripping off Simon and Garfunkel’s Mrs. Robinson…

In terms of artists fighting back, it’s a tough road. Technically, these sound-a-likes could pass as new compositions, and fighting it in court could be draining.

There is hope as Tom Waits successfully sued Audi and Frito Lay, of all people, for ripping off his signature sound.

Considering what’s at stake, artists and publishers have no choice but to file lawsuits. They may win outright, or they may not, but they will bring shame to the practice.

And bringing shame to the advertiser is likely the best bet. Using social media — Facebook pages, Twitter, and the like, fans could drag the advertiser and agency through just enough mud to turn the practice from a money saver to not quite worth it.

- Paul Marszalek